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WWE World Heavyweight Championship
The WWE World Heavyweight Championship is a world heavyweight championship created and promoted by the American professional wrestling promotion WWE. It is one of two world titles for WWE's main roster, alongside the NXT Championship that was created for the NXT brand. The current champion is The Fiend, who is in his second reign. The original world championship of the promotion, it was established by the then-World Wrestling Federation (WWF) on December 10, 1999 as the WWF Championship. The inaugural champion was Triple H. Since its inception, the title has undergone many name changes due to company name changes and title unifications. It is the oldest championship currently active in the WWE, and is presented as being the promotion's most prestigious title, with many matches for the title having headlined pay-per-view events – including WWE's flagship event WrestleMania. In professional wrestling in general, it is considered by many to be one of the most prestigious championships of all time. From its inception until 2001, it was promoted as WWE's sole primary championship. An additional world title, the WCW Championship, was added in early 2001. The titles were later unified as the Undisputed Championship. After the first brand extension in 2002 and the promotion becoming the WWE, the championship became exclusive to SmackDown, and the World Heavyweight Championship was created for Raw. ECW became a third brand in 2006, adding the ECW World Heavyweight Championship. Over the course of the first brand extension, the WWE Championship switched between brands, usually as a result of the annual draft. The ECW Championship was deactivated in 2010, and the World Heavyweight Championship was unified with the WWE Championship in 2013. Brand designation Following the events of the first WWE brand extension, an annual WWE draft was established in 2002, with Ric Flair and Vince McMahon heading up the Raw and SmackDown brands respectively. Further individuals acted as General Manager of Raw and of SmackDown in subsequent years. Each year, the General Managers participated in a draft lottery in which select members of the WWE roster were assigned to a brand. ECW became a third brand from 2006 to 2010. On August 29, 2011, WWE ended the brand extension and wrestlers (including all champions), were then free to appear on any program. On May 25, 2016, WWE announced that SmackDown would move to Tuesday nights and go live starting July 19 and also receive a unique set of wrestlers and writers, as opposed to Raw, thus reintroducing the brand extension. The draft took place on the live premiere of SmackDown. On the July 18 episode of Raw, SmackDown Commissioner Shane McMahon named Daniel Bryan the SmackDown General Manager and Raw Commissioner Stephanie McMahon named Mick Foley the Raw General Manager. The following is a list of dates indicating the transitions of the WWE Championship between the Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brands. Reigns Main article: List of WWE World Heavyweight Champions The WWE Championship was the first world championship introduced into the promotion in 1999. The inaugural champion was Triple H, and there have been 30 different official champions overall and 5 vacancies. The longest reigning champion is CM Punk, who held the title from November 20, 2011 to January 27, 2013, for a total of 434 days. Daniel Bryan is the shortest reigning champion, his first reign lasting for 1 minute, 48 seconds. John Cena holds the record for most reigns with 13. The Fiend is the current champion in his second reign. He won the title on October 6, 2019, at Hell in a Cell by defeating Seth Rollins in a Hell in a Cell match. Category:SmackDown Category:World championship